12-09-2023 12:28pm

Tamara Denić’s Student Academy Award Winner and OSCAR-qualified short ISTINA

Anita Johnson-Brown Editor

By Anita Johnson-Brown|The Los Angeles News

This film conveys the story of a news photographer who is threatened by right-wing radical groups in Belgrade, Serbia, and flees to Germany with her daughter. However, she soon realizes wherever she goes hostility and threats follow.

In Tamara Denić's ISTINA we follow Jelena, a news photographer in Belgrade campaigning for basic democratic rights. Casting a light on the dangers of this work, Denić's short film takes us through the tumultuous events that eventually lead to the protagonist, Jelena, moving away from her home and family in the hope she and her daughter can escape the threats she faces. This thought-provoking short qualified to be considered for a 2024 Oscar® through winning the Student Academy Award; making it the 6th Hamburg Media School graduation film to do so.

A news photographer is threatened by right-wing extremist groups in Belgrade, Serbia and flees to Germany with her daughter. However, she soon realizes wherever she goes hostility and threats follow.

Director Tamara Denić graduated from LMU in Munich, before studying film directing for her master's degree at the Hamburg Media School in 2022, as a scholarship holder of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. She also worked as a dub recording supervisor, film and editorial assistant, and video editor. Her short film GET HOME SAFE has already been selected for almost 50 international film festivals. Her graduation film ISTINA won the Audience Award for Medium-Length Film at the 44th Max Ophuels Film Festival. She is among the 2023 BAFTA finalists and won a Student Oscar at the 50th Student Academy Awards.

Christian Siée completed his master's in creative producing at Hamburg Media School in 2022 with a VFF scholarship. Before he studied media economics at the Stuttgart Media University and worked with Warner Bros, Wiedemann & Berg, and Bavaria Fiction in Munich. As a Fulbright scholar, he pursued his film studies in Los Angeles and later worked at German public broadcaster SWR. He produced the short GET HOME SAFE and his graduation film ISTINA. Currently, he is at Letterbox Film Production / Studio Hamburg, working on various shows and international co-productions.

Alongside Tamara Denić and Christian Siée working on ISTINA were writer David M. Lorenz and cinematographer André Stahlmann.

Past films from Hamburg Film School that have won the Student Academy Award include WATU WOTE (2017), SADAKAT/FIDELITY (2015), RAJU (2011), AUSREISSER (2005), THE RED JACKET (2003).

ISTINA has qualified to be considered for a 2024 Academy® Award.

Watch the Trailer